


Being Known

by pidgeonpostal



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Clover Ebi Makes Good Decisions in this one Actually, James Ironwood is under a lot of stress, M/M, Minor Atlas Character Appearances, Multi, Non-Explicit Sex, Winter is here to be competent and beat the absolute shit out of Qrow a few times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:15:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28319571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pidgeonpostal/pseuds/pidgeonpostal
Summary: The Atlas shatterdome needs pilots. Qrow is crewless in Vale and figures trying to pilot with James is worth a shot. Clover objects.It's a RWBY Pacific Rim AU with Qrow, Clover, and James getting together. Hopefully that tells you whether you'll be into it.
Relationships: Clover Ebi/James Ironwood, Qrow Branwen/Clover Ebi, Qrow Branwen/Clover Ebi/James Ironwood, Qrow Branwen/James Ironwood
Comments: 46
Kudos: 44





	1. Compatible

It made sense to send him to Atlas, but that didn’t mean Qrow had to enjoy it.

First off, it was cold. Qrow was never going to get used to the cold here, the way the floor seeped the warmth from your bones when you got out of bed, the way you could get warmer under a jacket but never truly stop shivering. The Atlas shatterdome was a beautiful metal-and-glass thing, but it wasn’t _warm._ The triple-pane windows and white floors made the whole thing look much more elegant than comforting.

James met them on the helipad in a white greatcoat so heavy that the wind could barely lift the hem. Qrow, in his one winter coat and a pair of dress slacks, shivered and clutched his grey duffel closer to his chest.

“It’s fucking cold here, Jimmy.”

That got a smile. “It always is. Come inside, we have coffee.”

Thank the brothers.

James brought him up to speed with the terrifying efficiency of someone completely irreplaceable in their current position, which was part of how Qrow knew things were getting really desperate here. He’d been brought in to pilot a Paladin with James, because James was one of the few pilots Atlas had who were fit for duty. The Ace Ops were more than capable, but they weren’t _enough,_ and James’ reconstruction of the training school could only work so quickly. They had a gap of a few years before any graduates were ready. And of all the people in the world, or so James argued, Qrow knew James best.

After a psych test Qrow lied his way through with flying colors, he was led to a single-occupancy room. Being James’ potential co-pilot had some perks, he supposed. He dropped his duffel at the foot of the bed. A day of training tomorrow was all they could give him, and then they were due for a drift test the day after.

He shook his head to try to clear his thoughts. They needed him in top shape, the way he’d been with STRQ. Never mind that that had been a decade ago. Never mind that James had visited the Vale shatterdome in that time, knew exactly what Qrow had been up to. James was willing to take that on, and Qrow was going to have to trust they could make it work.

They had to.

* * *

The Ace Ops were good, but Qrow had fought better.

Harriet was fast, but careless, prone to overreach. Marrow had energy, but there was a shakiness to it that hid something else. He knew, after barely a minute of sparring, that he wasn’t compatible with either of them. It didn’t matter, he reminded himself. He was here to drift with James. But his heart still sank at the thought.

He and James were friends. They were close, or had been. They had fought together before, and Qrow knew that at that time, they had been compatible. But Qrow had had STRQ, and James had had Atlas, and there wasn’t much point in testing it out if they were never going to work together. But now, as he deflected another heavy blow from Elm, he worried that he had forgotten what it felt like, to be that in sync with someone. He tried harder to match up with Vine, that calm demeanor reminding him a bit of James, but felt nothing.

James had to run the shatterdome. Qrow wouldn’t see him until the drift test. What if it felt like this?

“Up for one more?”

Qrow looked up from the mat. Someone new smiled down at him, a poster child for the Atlas army if Qrow had ever seen one. Short brown hair, broad shoulders under a thin tank top, bright teal eyes that challenged even as they laughed.

His tank top rode up over his pants, but instead of skin Qrow saw bandages. “You’re injured,” he stated bluntly.

He pulled his shirt down over it and waved away Qrow’s comment. “Just a scratch, now. Besides, it’s only a problem if I get hit.”

Cocky bastard.

“Fine,” Qrow drawled, tapping his staff against the mat. “Come get yours.”

The man hopped down to the mat and grabbed a staff. “I’m Clover, by the way.”

“Qrow,” Qrow said simply, and rushed him.

Oh.

Clover slipped where others would have held, reappeared where Qrow didn’t expect but _knew,_ body shifting to meet him before his conscious mind knew what he was doing. They exchanged hits, once, twice, until Qrow moved without thinking and landed his next hit on Clover’s ribcage.

“Shit!”

Clover collapsed, but held up a hand. “It’s fine, it’s fine. Just…give me a second.”

Qrow sighed. “No. You’re done.”

“Don’t…” Clover gasped and pushed himself to stand. “Don’t tell me you didn’t feel that.”

Qrow shook his head. Even if there _was_ something, it probably wasn’t enough. Qrow doubted he would ever sync past fifty percent with one of Jimmy’s soldiers. He’d barely broken twenty with Winter back when _that_ had seemed like a good idea. “I’m here to pilot with James, not you.”

“You can’t take James out there!”

Qrow scowled. “I’m not _taking_ James anywhere. He’s choosing to go. Atlas needs pilots.”

“Atlas needs _James,_ and if he deploys and doesn’t come back, this whole operation falls apart.”

Bootlicker. “You wanna help James so bad? Get in bed, heal up. You’re no good to him like this.”

That hit home. Clover looked away, and Qrow made to leave.

He heard Clover speak again as he opened the door. “Promise me something, Qrow. Promise me you’ll make sure James makes it back.”

Qrow couldn’t tell if Clover knew about STRQ or was just worried. He hoped for the latter. He turned and met Clover’s eyes. “I know how important he is. I won’t come back without him.”

Clover sighed. His shoulders sagged as some of the tension eased out of him. “Good enough.”

Qrow looked him up later, of course. Clover Ebi. His test results were telling. Decent sync rates with everyone, but few good enough to pilot with. Not an uncommon problem in Atlas pilots, Qrow remembered. They all trained to be cookie-cutter pilots and carry as little into the drift as possible, but drifting was more than that. Drifting was _personal,_ and no amount of training could prepare you for the moment you laid yourself bare to someone else.

They’d tried Clover with James. They’d barely gotten above fifty percent. He’d gotten to seventy with Marrow, though, enough to send them out in a Paladin. They’d come back with a dead grimm and shrapnel the size of a clipboard through Clover’s abdomen. _Just a scratch._ Idiot. No wonder Marrow was so nervous. Qrow would have to talk to him sometime. He knew a little bit about losing co-pilots.

But a seventy with Marrow probably meant their spar was a fluke. Just by transitive property, Clover and Qrow would probably barely be able to drift if they tried. Hopefully the inverse was true, and Clover’s incompatibility with James would bode well for the drift test tomorrow.

* * *

Qrow slammed his fist against the wall of the shower.

_Fifty percent. But the neural handshake’s unstable._

The thing was, Qrow _did_ know James. He was so _sure,_ so certain of what he was doing at all times, so put together. He knew it would be hard. He thought drifting with James would be like trying to wrap himself around a monolith, moving around him to accommodate that certainty and drive. Not his usual, but doable.

_Forty percent and dropping._

Drifting with James was a fortress siege. He wasn’t just unyielding, he was actively antagonistic. Controlling. Qrow couldn’t drift if he was being pulled to where James wanted him. He’d never been good at taking direction. So he’d pushed back, asserted his position, and suddenly he’d been at war.

_Thirty. They won’t reach minimum at this rate._

He’d scaled the walls James put up, only to find nothing on the other side. Nothing but _fear._ Fear so powerful it threatened to swallow them both.

_They’ve dropped to twenty. Pull the plug._

The water was so hot it burned, but Qrow let it run. James hadn’t been trying to control Qrow. He’d been trying to control _himself._ There was so much fear in him, so much that James was trying to hide behind the appearance of stability. Appearances mattered if you were leading a shatterdome, Qrow understood that. But you couldn’t hide something like that in the drift, no matter how many walls you put up.

There’d be no more drift tests with James. Qrow was the last resort, the last hope. They’d double down on autopilot Paladins and see if any of the trainees could be pulled early. Maybe pull a full pair from Vale, if they could spare one. Qrow knew damn well they couldn’t.

James wouldn’t even _look_ at him. James had disconnected first, and when Qrow had tumbled out of the pilot connections to try and follow him, he was already gone. The showers were empty and had been for a while. Either James was doing paperwork in his drivesuit, or he was deliberately avoiding where Qrow would be.

So Qrow took it as the dismissal it was and set himself to using up every drop of hot water the Atlas shatterdome had. The room filled with steam and for the first time since landing on this gods-forsaken rock, Qrow felt warm. When he finally couldn’t stand it any longer, he turned off the water and just stood in the heat for a moment, before walking back out to where he’d left his clothes.

Clover was sitting on the bench, staring down at his hands.

Qrow wasn’t stupid, he knew this had to be intentional. Clover was trying to catch him off guard to ask something Qrow wouldn’t normally answer. Of course, it really only worked if the intended target had shame.

Qrow put one hand on his naked hip and raised an eyebrow. “Need something?”

Clover looked up and his eyes went wide for half a second before they darted back down to look at his feet. He glanced at the towel on the bench next to him and held it out towards Qrow, still not looking at him.

Huh. That was different.

“I saw the drift test.”

Qrow stalked over and snatched the towel out of his hand. He didn’t dignify that with a response.

“You know Vale doesn’t have anyone to spare. And the autopilots aren’t fast enough to fight grimm.”

“Then you better hope the rest of your team can protect Atlas,” Qrow snapped back.

Clover shook his head. “They’re only two sets of pilots, they can only be so many places. And Harriet and Marrow aren’t as compatible as…as Harriet’s last co-pilot.”

Qrow ran the towel over his head. “I’m not compatible with either of them, so don’t ask.”

“I’m not asking for them.”

This again.

“We can run a test without running it by James, just have to give the technicians notice. If it works, James can’t reasonably say no.”

“Why are you so hung up on this, huh?” Qrow angrily shoved the rest of his clothes on. Only when the last of them had come off the bench did Clover dare to look up at him. Weirdly shy for a pilot, Qrow thought. “Why me?”

“You’re the last unpaired pilot in Atlas, other than James. And STRQ was one of the best teams the world has ever seen. I think we could do good work.”

Logical, reasonable, and complete bullshit. Qrow decided to poke. “That desperate to get back in a Paladin? Be a good toy soldier for Atlas?”

“To _protect_ Atlas!” Clover shouted as he stood up. He was a bit taller than Qrow, but the wince as he stretched his injury took away from the overall effect. His expression softened before he kept going. “You drifted with him. You saw it, didn’t you?”

Something horrible began to form at the edge of Qrow’s mind. “He’s afraid. What of it?”

“I’ve seen his schedule. He’s putting in more hours on the training sims than he used to. I had someone pull his settings. Qrow, if we can’t get another crew, James is going to try and do it himself. _Alone.”_

For a moment, Qrow didn’t see Clover. He just saw Summer again, the Summer from Tai’s memory, turning to him in the cockpit as his restraints kicked in. She didn’t say anything, she never did, but as Tai pressed a hand against the inside of the escape pod, she put her hand up in farewell, and smiled.

Burning Rose held an informal posthumous record for longest operation by a solo pilot, and another couple of formal awards for valor in battle. Qrow had been present when they’d hung them on the wall of the Vale shatterdome. Ozpin had used words like “above and beyond” and “giving everything for the cause.” Qrow remembered hating it. He also remembered that in that moment, Ozpin had reminded him a lot of James.

Piloting with Clover could crash and burn. But solo piloting always, always ended the same. James knew that. He also loved Atlas enough to do it anyway.

Qrow looked down at Clover. “What makes you so sure we’re compatible?”

Clover smiled. “Call it a hunch.”

 _Cocky bastard._ Qrow snorted. “Alright, boy scout. Let’s see if we can save Jimmy from himself.”

* * *

Drifting with someone wasn’t the same as being friends. Qrow and Raven were living proof of that. It was intimate, but intimacy was not love, not on its own. Yet Summer and Tai had been proof that it could become that, too. Their marriage hadn’t exactly been a surprise, but it wasn’t an anomaly, either. Love took many forms.

Qrow still loved James. He always would. They were close, but they weren’t drift compatible. They’d never pilot together. Qrow and Raven had been drift compatible, but they hadn’t been close. Their incredible sync rate was mostly built on spite and the thrill of bending thousands of tons of steel and electronics to their violent will. So, Qrow had seen a lot of different kinds of drifts, and he wasn’t sure what to expect from Clover.

What he _had_ expected was their drift test to immediately become the gossip of the shatterdome, and he had been right.

There had been a crowd when he and James had drift tested, and while it wasn’t quite the same this time, there were still people on the viewing deck, looking down at the Paladin resting in its dock. Due Process had, of course, been commissioned for him and James, painted up in white and black with silver filigree traced down its sides. James had probably designed those himself, Qrow realized with a stab of guilt. This was James’ machine through and through.

Qrow glanced over the crowd for James. James had to know by now what they were doing, but he hadn’t stopped it or talked to them about it. James was still avoiding him. Fine. James could come back when he was ready to talk about it. Qrow would wait. He’d learned to hold a grudge from the best.

Clover piloted left, which was good since Qrow liked to pilot right anyway. Clover smiled at him while they hooked in. “Ready?”

Qrow wondered if Clover’s confidence was just as thin as James’ was. He finished closing the clasps on his wrists and shrugged. “Guess we’ll find out.”

Clover nodded. “Drop us, Pietro.”

The lead engineer’s voice came over the loudspeakers. “Initiating neural handshake.”

There was a brief moment of vertigo, too brief. They were still on the surface of the handshake then, someone was holding back. It took Qrow a moment to realize it was him. _Clover’s probably read my file. It’s fine. He knows. Just_ drop.

He felt his body take a deep breath, like that was going to help him. He plunged.

With Raven, their shared headspace was always in motion. There was no sense of territory, only the constant flurry of giving and gaining ground. Their fight for control spun them around each other like a hurricane, and then they’d take that power and throw it at the nearest grimm. Chaotic, but effective.

Clover was more like James. There was a portion of the headspace that had already taken on a sense of being _Clover,_ but unlike James it wasn’t a contiguous space he was set to defend. It was structured, but not fully formed. Waiting. Open.

Qrow poured himself into the empty spaces and felt them slide to accommodate him. As he did, Clover’s memories flashed by next to his own. Qrow tried to allow them to pass without judgement or shame. Shame between pilots could tear down a drift in an instant.

So when he felt a thread of it from Clover, he tried to pull back.

 _No,_ someone said. Clover. _It’s fine. It’s too fresh to leave behind. Just, sorry about this._

Qrow didn’t understand, until the thread of shame pulled him towards a very familiar memory. Clover waiting by the showers to start a negotiation he needed to win. Qrow, fully naked and refusing to be put on his back foot, daring Clover to look away. A surge of heat from Clover. _Oh._

 _Rookie mistake, Clover._ Qrow hoped Clover could feel his smile. It wasn’t the first time he’d drifted with someone who thought he was pretty. It was almost flattering.

 _I should have expected a pilot as good as you to be utterly shameless._ Clover again. Warm. Fond.

 _I have shame, just not about that._ More memories passed by, and Qrow let them go. He was starting to understand their headspace. Clover didn’t move so much as _shift_ as Qrow moved around him, clearing a path with small adjustments. He was steady, if a little rigid. Qrow could work with that.

Laughter. _You’re quick, if a little sharp. I can work with that. Ready?_

They opened their eyes. As one, they rolled their shoulders. Due Process raised its head and stood tall in its dock.

Pietro’s voice echoed over the loudspeakers. “Handshake stable at eighty-six percent. Looks like a good one, boys.”

Qrow smirked, and knew Clover did as well.


	2. Understanding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clover and Qrow go on a mission and have some serious conversations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so: I love y'all, and also I have re-remembered that I am not the kind of person who can do chapter-by-chapter updates. I was in chapter four of this and _still_ doing edits of this chapter. But, I am now like 90% sure I know how to end this, so over the course of today I'm doing my editing rounds and posting what I have locked down because I'm stressed about not updating this. Thanks for commenting/kudosing!
> 
> Relatedly: This was supposed to be a kinda fun adventure fic to take a break from an Ironwood Rehabilitation Fic and then it became just a slightly different one of those. Check the tags, they have updated!

Without any input on Qrow’s part, Clover was cleared to pilot by the end of the week.

“James must have seen the results,” Clover justified to him over lunch in the mess. “He knows we need the extra pilots in rotation. We’ll probably start on light missions, or when one of the others can come with us.”

“Has he talked to you?”

Clover looked away and bit into an apple before responding. “Give him time. He’ll come around, eventually.”

James, in Qrow’s experience, didn’t come around _period,_ but it didn’t seem like he’d managed to convince Clover of that. He didn’t feel like ruining his lunch over it right now. Maybe in a few more drifts. Speaking of. “So, how was it for you?”

Clover raised an eyebrow and Qrow groaned. “The _drift,_ you ass.”

Clover smirked. After the initial fuss in the drift, Clover was surprisingly open about flirting with Qrow. Qrow didn’t hate it. He’d been in Clover’s head, after all. Clover didn’t expect anything from it. He just liked doing it. There was something nice about that kind of undemanding affection. “It was different,” Clover admitted. “I’ve only drifted with Atlas pilots before this.”

Qrow winced. Right. Only with other people actively trying to hold back. Qrow didn’t, couldn’t hold anything back in the drift. He’d thrown Clover in the deep end with his baggage. Clover had certainly had some of his own, but it had been in the past, easily lost in the flood of memories. With James looming large in Qrow’s mind, it was impossible for him to not be reminded of how STRQ fell apart. There was no way Clover didn’t see it.

“I didn’t say it was bad,” Clover said quietly.

Qrow looked up. Clover was frowning at him. Qrow tried to laugh it off. “Reading my mind already?”

“Don’t need to. I knew about STRQ going in. Figured it’d be top of mind for you. ”

Qrow sighed. “Kinda surprised it didn’t scare you off. You saw Summer?”

“I did. But filtered through your drift with Tai. It’s okay. Not that it happened, but sharing it. It’s okay.”

Clover was so _sure,_ as steady as he had been in the drift. Qrow wanted to believe him. “So you’re really willing to do this?”

“Yep,” Clover said, taking a sip of—was that juice? Where did he get juice? “We’re co-pilots now, you’re stuck with me. Juice?” He offered the cup.

Qrow took it. It was incredibly sweet, one of those fruits from Menagerie that he didn’t see often enough to know the name. It wasn’t the easiest thing to get in Vale, Qrow couldn’t imagine how hard it was to get it in Atlas.

His surprise must have shown on his face. Clover’s smile was far too smug. “You know, I’ve never synced that high before, I thought it would be more overwhelming. Instead it just felt…right.”

Clover made no move to take the cup back, so Qrow finished it off before answering. “High syncs are like that. We’ll probably have to be careful about ghosting soon.”

“I’ve got a chess board in my room.” Chess was the traditional way to keep track of ghost drifting. Suddenly being able to see your opponent’s next move was a sure sign that pilots were beginning to experience drifting outside of a Paladin. It was also supposed to be good mental training, or so Qrow had heard. He didn’t like chess much.

So instead Qrow asked, “Ever played fighting games?”

Clover had not, and he was _abysmal_ at it. They compromised and settled on poker. Clover kept winning, even after Qrow started shouting obscenities in his mind, so Qrow figured they weren’t ghosting yet.

* * *

They were doing a practice patrol in Due Process a week later when the alarms went off.

“Due Process, what is your status?” James’ voice filtered through comms.

Qrow flinched and then felt _Clover_ flinch through the drift, a knot of emotions that Qrow couldn’t quite puzzle out threatening to surface. Whatever it was, it was making Clover hurt, and that fed back into a surge of protectiveness that made Qrow want to tell James where to shove his status.

But it was Clover who slipped around to block his anger, telling him to wait. _Not now._ “Armed and ready, sir.”

“There’s a sea feilong in your sector. We’re preparing Frozen Fortune for launch, you need to hold it off until then. Do _not_ engage past the continental shelf, understood?”

 _No promises,_ Qrow thought.

“Copy,” Clover said. _He has his reasons._ But he didn’t really believe that, not quite. It was all tied up inside of him, wanting to trust but—

_Sir, we have to withdraw, Clover—_

_Negative, Frozen Fortune. Re-engage._

_Marrow, I’m fine._

_You’re not fine!_

“Qrow, don’t follow—”

Qrow wasn’t standing in Due Process anymore. He was standing in the cockpit of a different Paladin, Marrow to his right and Clover to his left. There was a breach, water was pouring in from a break in the glass and some paneling has been blasted in, pieces lodged in the walls and the floor and—

_Clover._

“Marrow,” Clover was saying through gritted teeth. “This grimm _cannot_ make landfall, do you understand?” Qrow felt his emotions as if he were drifting with him. Terrified. Determined. _Trusting._ James was doing what was best for them all. If he said to re-engage, that was what they were doing. He had their vitals. Clover would pull through for another minute. He wasn’t fine but he _would be_ fine, they just had to hold out a little longer.

“Clover, if we don’t turn around _right now_ you’re not gonna make it.” Marrow’s eyes were wide, and Qrow might be drifting with Clover in the present but here in the memory Clover was drifting with _Marrow,_ and Marrow could feel how deep the wound went even if Clover tried to hide it from him.

“Marrow.” James’ voice was cold and flat. “You have a job to do. Eliminate the grimm. Nothing else matters.”

Nothing. Not even Clover. Clover knew it, agreed with it, and in that moment, felt completely and utterly alone.

_“Qrow!”_

Qrow snapped back into the drift in a panic that warped the headspace around him. He wrapped himself around Clover as far as he could, anything to chase away that awful feeling. _I’ve got you, you’re not alone._

 _Qrow,_ stop.

Qrow froze. Back in his body, his eyes darted over the screens in front of him. His heart rate was spiking and they were losing sync fast. He’d overstepped, overwhelmed the headspace with his...what? Protectiveness? Like Clover needed his protection. Qrow felt a rush of shame. _Get a grip, Qrow._

 _I appreciate the sentiment, but it’s not necessary._ He could feel Clover smiling but the drift told him it was skin deep. He just needed Qrow back in fighting form. Right. Good little soldier.

Clover’s smile faltered. _It’s not like that, it’s really—_

Qrow shut him down and retreated to their preexisting structure in the headspace, but the damage was done. Their peak drift was in the high eighties. Right now they were barely breaking seventy-five. But there was no way they’d be able to talk about this now. There was no way _Qrow_ was going to be able to talk about this now without completely tanking their sync rate. So Qrow took his anger and funneled it into something useful, like he always had with Raven. _Later,_ he said over the drift. _We’ve got a grimm to catch._

A pause. He felt Clover’s emotional landscape go unnaturally still. _Alright._

The entire exchange had taken barely a moment, and they both heard James over the comm one last time. “Good. Uh. Eyes up out there. Over and out.”

Qrow snorted. As much of an ass as he was being, James was still James. Never had quite figured out how to end a call. He pulled up the coordinates they’d received and a red blip appeared on the map, close and moving straight towards them. _Looks like we’ve got its attention._

The sea feilong burst from the water in front of them, mouth open in a roar. Without time to deploy other weapons, they caught its jaws in Due Process’ hands, but the force of its lunge pushed them back. They tried to dig their feet into the sand.

Qrow grunted and initialized the cannon in Due Process’ right arm, his requested change to the standard Atlas Paladin. It would take a second to spin up but at this range, but a direct shot into the grimm’s mouth could be fatal. _We just need to hold it for—_

 _—a few seconds, right._ Clover stared out the cockpit down the grimm’s gullet. _We have it, so long as—_

A glow appeared at the back of the grimm’s throat.

 _Nope, new plan._ They twisted their grip and _pushed,_ throwing the grimm to the side before it could blast them dead-on with lightning. _When it comes back up we’ll—_

The cockpit pitched sideways into the water, and everything went dark. The automatic cockpit lights flickered to life. What happened? Qrow blinked frantically at the readouts in front of him and cursed. One of the legs had just reported damage in a ring around the limb. They’d been grappled, the grimm was pulling them under.

An alarm chimed in Qrow’s ear. “Unit submerged,” a computerized voice announced. “Life support systems operating at ninety-eight percent capacity. Switching to underwater overlay.”

Thin green lines appeared out the cockpit window, tracing out shaped in the dark and noting their distance. They could see the tail of the grimm wrapped around one leg of the Paladin, and the rest of the long, sinuous body moving closer and closer to where a thin green line had been drawn across their entire vision. The continental shelf.

The grimm was going to drag them out to sea. Qrow raised the cannon, only to have the alarm chime again. “Warning. Harbinger fire shots designed for close-range surface combat. Effective range significantly reduced underwater.”

 _Got it._ Clover pulled up a screen over his right wrist and fumbled with a series of buttons.

“Acknowledged. Melee mode engaged.”

Qrow aimed at the tail wrapped around their leg just as a blade slid down from the back of the wrist, propelled by a burst of dust. It slid into the black scales and Clover and Qrow yanked _up_ to pull it clean through. The water reverberated with the grimm’s screech, and it fled down into the depths underneath them.

Qrow’s fury broke out of its box and seeped into the headspace, a sharp, whirling thing that Clover had to slide away from, to make room for, and then suddenly it wasn’t just Clover sliding, it was their feet slipping from the sand on the ocean floor, pulled down by the current, and Due Process slipped over the continental shelf. The edge of the world fell away above them.

Clover stopped slipping. He surged into the drift, enveloping Qrow’s anger and hurt and sharp edges. _It’s okay. Qrow, I’m okay._

Qrow’s thoughts wouldn’t stop spinning. _It’s not okay, it got away, James hurt you, we’re falling, he ordered you to_ die—

 _That’s the job, sometimes._ Gentle. Assured. Resigned.

Anger. Guilt. _You shouldn’t be comforting me. If anything, it should be the reverse._

_Don’t say that. Co-pilots, remember?_

Co-pilots. Yes. Clover wasn’t alone anymore, he had Qrow, and Qrow would _never_ follow that order, even from Clover. He’d take Clover back kicking and screaming if that’s what it took to keep them both alive.

 _That’s insubordination._ Disapproving. Fond, melting into flirting. Undeniably Clover. _So, wanna get out of here?_

A loose gathering of diagrams and thoughts and feelings pressed against Qrow. It was clearly a plan of sorts, but for a moment it didn’t parse. At Qrow’s confusion, there was a second try which made both more and less sense. _They made the left arm a_ what?

Clover’s very being just radiated smugness. _I specifically suggested this one, actually._

 _Then_ you _aim it, I’ll handle the other._ Qrow spun up Harbinger with a gravity dust charge, and fired into the current, the force of it slowing their drift away from the edge. At the same time, Qrow had the disturbing feeling of the position feedback from Due Process to his nerves reporting a discrepancy between the locations of his left hand and forearm, as Clover fired Due Process’ left hand at the cliff. Seconds later, Qrow’s displaced left hand reported colliding with rock, and holding fast.

Due Process hung over the edge of the abyss, held to the cliff by a thin metal cable.

Clover burst with pride. _Got us._

Qrow felt a surge of warmth go through him. _Yeah, good work._ Clover’s happiness was contagious. And then Clover’s happiness shifted to something more familiar. A smug, anticipatory sort of feeling.

Qrow had felt it a lot with Tai. Clover was going to make a pun. _Clover don’t you dare—_

Reel _good work, huh?_

Qrow thought of the loudest, most irritating alarm he could, as loud as he possibly could. Clover sent back some truly piercing dolphin calls. In the cockpit, Clover chuckled and activated the winch, retracting the hand and, ugh, _reeling_ them in towards the cliff. _Tai, huh? Seems like a good man._

A soft smile made its way onto Qrow’s face. _Yeah. The best._

The water shook again. Qrow watched the red dot moving away from them slow, then begin to return.

 _Coming back. Time?_ Clover asked, adding a layer of images below the word.

 _Time,_ Qrow responded in the affirmative, and raised the barrel of Harbinger.

 _Distance?_ Another barrage of visuals.

 _Enough._ Qrow sent back a few brief flashes of his expected trajectory for them. _Fire on mark._

A darker shadow began to emerge from the depths below them. Harbinger’s barrel glowed purple.

Qrow waited.

And waited.

The sea feilong’s teeth glinted in the murk. It lunged towards them, jaws wide.

_Mark._

They disengaged all the locks on Harbinger and fired a gravity shot directly down its throat. The head burst into a cloud of black ashes.

Recoil slammed into Due Process so hard that Qrow’s head was ringing, but the connections to the Paladin held, and he watched behind them as the remains of the grimm floated down into the deep. Due Process was pushed back against the current, far enough that they sailed back over the cliff onto the continental shelf. Clover detached them from the edge and let the last push from the shot carry them safely into the sand.

“Due Process, _report.”_

 _Oh ho, we’ve made Jimmy mad._ Qrow was still simmering.

Clover disapproved, but didn’t disagree. “Grimm eliminated, sir.”

“You were past the continental shelf.”

“Not by choice, _James,”_ Qrow spat back. “It dragged us down before we could get a good shot in. You’re welcome, by the way.”

The response didn’t come back right away. Qrow figured James was doing one of his long-suffering “I want to yell at you but we’re on a public channel” sighs back at the control tower. Pity. “Your path back to the shatterdome is clear. Do you need assistance?”

“No,” Clover answered before Qrow could. “The damage is cosmetic, we’ll be back shortly.”

Paladins were deceptively fast, just because each stride could cover so much ground, but it was still going to be a decent walk back. Qrow busied himself checking on all of Due Process’ systems. His eyes darted back to the sync history. So far, they’d usually been in the low eighties, always above threshold but rarely breaching that first eighty-six from the drift test.

They’d spiked to ninety in that last fight. Qrow tried to match it up to other graphs. Just before the final cannon shot. Clover’s pun? Qrow snorted. Hopefully not. If puns were what sustained a high sync rate, he was going to retire on the spot.

 _You like it._ Clover looked over from his hookup and winked.

Qrow did, although he was still getting used to Clover responding to his inner monologue. Sharing a drift took some adjustment, especially with all the new memories in the mix. Speaking of.

_We should talk about that._

Clover went rigid again.

_Clover, I meant it. If James sends us to die, I’m not following that order._

_Qrow, we’re sworn to protect—_

_I didn’t swear_ shit. _James panicked and gave a stupid order, I’m not letting him do it again._

Clover shifted uncomfortably and put space between them. Defensive. Of James? _If that grimm had made landfall, it would have hurt more than just me. This is what we sign up for._

_Again, didn’t sign shit. And don’t tell me Atlas doesn’t have a plan for when grimm make landfall._

_We don’t._

Due Process halted mid-step as Qrow’s thought process screeched to a stop. _What?_

_Not anymore. The Schnee Dust Corporation was supposed to be in charge of them._

Fucking Schnees.

 _Hey, Winter’s alright._ Clover nudged closer in the drift and they started walking again. _With the shatterdome to run, James hasn’t been able to keep up with the landfall precautions. There hasn’t been a landfall in a decade, and we can’t get the political will to fund them. The best he’s managed is to make them seem stable to prevent panic. No one but James’ inner circle knows the truth._

Fucking James. Of _course_ he wouldn’t be able to keep up with both. But he refused to trust anyone else with it, because the other option was Jacques Fucking Schnee, who never did anything if he couldn’t make a profit off it. Fucking Atlas.

_Hey, I’m alright, aren’t I?_

_Yeah Cloves, you’re okay._ More warmth. A sensation Qrow couldn’t possibly explain except to say it sparkled. Clover’s fault, definitely. _That’s why I’m not letting you play the big hero. If we get that order, we’re finding another way out._

Clover twisted uncomfortably, still out of reach. _Hopefully it won’t come to that._

It might. James was stretched thin right now. He was good at his job but he was _one man,_ at some point there wasn’t going to be anything left to give. But James wouldn’t _talk_ to them.

 _He’ll come around,_ Clover said again, but he didn’t really believe it. He was still tying himself up in a knot about it. He _wanted_ to trust, but he could see what Qrow had seen now, seen the way James was tearing himself up, and it was hurting Clover to know it, because he cared about James, because—

Huh. Well, that wasn’t actually that surprising. Qrow got it, of course. James was handsome. Competent, if a bit controlling. Caring, when his damn job didn’t get in the way. Which, with Clover reporting directly to him, it always would. It already had. And yet. _Even after?_

_Yes. Qrow, you drifted with him, you know where it comes from._

Qrow did. James was getting desperate. Qrow being in Atlas at all was proof of that. Desperation made terrible choices, Qrow knew that well. But James kept his cards close to his chest. Even in a crisis moment, he could keep his face calm. It made him a good general. It also meant if the crisis was internal, he wouldn’t say anything about it. And, because he was impossibly stubborn, he might keep not saying anything for quite some time. Qrow didn’t even know where to start trying to reach out.

 _Still working on that,_ Clover replied. _But you know, two heads are better than one._

Clover was sinking back into their headspace, letting the tension unwind. A kind of calm settled over him. Relief, Qrow realized, at being understood. And he was right. Qrow understood quite well what it meant to love James Ironwood, even now.

 _You two go pretty far back, huh?_ Clover settled into that shared feeling, having apparently decided it counted as agreeing to work together. To his surprise, so did Qrow. It made sense to work together towards the same goal, after all.

 _That’s a stretch, but yeah. Some good stories,_ Qrow admitted.

_I’d like to see that._

_Well, we’ve got a long walk. Lemme see what I can pull together. Oh here, this was at my first Vytal Festival._

Qrow opened up the memory and invited him in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- I tried to make mech names based on weapon names but sometimes they come out bad. Timber Thorn was extra but felt okay. Fast Fetch did not, and then I realized that actually, it was Clover and Marrow’s mech first. So I added semblance names as an option and got Frozen Fortune for the mech Clover and Marrow used to pilot. Lotta alliterations today. (Due Process is just James’ weapon name because, well, it’s James. If Atlas makes a mech James is supposed to be in, it’s the General’s Mech no matter who else is in it.)  
> \- Y’all, the ocean is _deep,_ a brief internet search shows. But for the sake of cool robot fights let’s assume a Paladin can just kinda wade through easily for some portion near the shore, and then the continental shelf drops off underwater some time after that when convenient to me.  
> \- I think the history of this world, for those interested, is that grimm showed up only in the ocean and only in larger numbers as humanity got bigger. Essentially this world constantly has grimm in proportion to humans, and unless it’s for a plot reason, no one knows why. So for most of history the solution was less humans, and then dust was mined and the industrial revolution took off.  
> \- Part of the reason this update took so long is because I kept having to go back and update it. Writing James into fics is something I really want to do but have a hard time doing in a way that feels right, because the way that I understand his character is that it is extremely hard to get him to do anything he doesn’t want to do, so I try to write him like that, but then he _doesn’t want to do things James could you just, for FIVE SECONDS—_


	3. Touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Qrow has a revelation and is forced to go through an entire arc of feelings about it in about three thousand words.

Qrow clutched an insulated mug of coffee to his chest and staggered around the shatterdome, looking for Clover. They had developed a kind of downtime routine after a while. They’d have lunch together, then Clover would do something horribly wholesome or Ace Ops related and Qrow would take a nap. Whenever Qrow woke up, he’d stumble into Clover eventually and they’d play poker for some of the time before dinner.

Except he’d been up and stumbling around the shatterdome for half an hour now, and couldn’t find Clover.

It shouldn’t have bothered him. It wouldn’t have bothered him, really, but Clover was the most punctual human being he had ever met, and had developed an uncanny ability to know when Qrow was awake. So the fact that he was nowhere to be found was somewhat suspect. Eventually, he found his way to the workshops, where Clover was occasionally doing his something wholesome of the day, and ran into Pietro instead.

“Uh, hey Pietro.”

“Ah, Qrow! You’ll be looking for Clover, then. He’s outside with Penny. But, ah, while you’re here, I wanted to review some of the modifications to Due Process, do you have a moment?”

Qrow weighed his options for the briefest of moments. Put on enough jackets to survive outside and go find Clover, or talk shop until they came back. “Sure, I’ve got a minute.”

They were still talking through the release mechanisms on Harbinger when Qrow heard laughter from the hallway, and Penny burst into the room, wearing a bright green winter coat that still had snow clinging to it. “Hello, father! Oh, hello Pilot Branwen!”

Qrow wrinkled his nose. That was far too formal. He was about to say so when Clover appeared in the doorway. He had already shed his Atlas-regulation greatcoat and held it over one arm, but it too looked covered in snow. A loose red scarf hung around his neck, and his smile towards Penny was dazzling. His whole face, really. Clover, Qrow realized suddenly, was pretty cute.

Desire hit Qrow like a freight train. It wasn’t exactly like it had escaped his notice before so much as he just hadn’t been looking for it but now that he was, it was impossible to ignore. He liked Clover, liked piloting with him and playing poker with him and talking with him. But now, now he liked him and wanted to touch and just…just  _ wanted. _

And he knew Clover liked him, in a way. At least enough to keep flirting for fun.

Qrow tried to put these two things together and hit a wall. There was just no way. That implied…it implied a lot of things. It  _ assumed _ a lot of things. And it was absolutely going to come up when they drifted. He had to get a handle on this before their next mission.

“Just ‘Qrow’ is fine, Penny,” Clover was saying. “Or would you rather we call you ‘Miss Polendina?’”

Penny seemed to genuinely consider this. “No, I like ‘Penny’ just fine.”

Qrow mentally slapped himself and plastered on a smile. “Well, I like ‘Qrow’ just fine.”

“So do I,” Clover winked, and Qrow felt his cheeks start to burn.  _ Shit. _

“Then it’s settled! Hello, Qrow! Oh, are you reviewing the Harbinger upgrades? The safety locks should be faster now, as we’ve rolled out a software update that should improve response time by ten percent!”

Qrow hid behind his coffee mug as Penny described the changes to Due Process, and excused himself as soon as the conversation allowed. He had to go think.

“Qrow!”

Shit. Clover had followed him out. Qrow turned around and tried to be casual. “Hey, Cloves.”

“Up for a game still?”

No. Proximity could trigger ghost drifting, and if Clover got a hint of how he was feeling right now he was going to combust on the spot. “Uh, actually I have to—I’ve got a thing to do. Tomorrow?”

Clover frowned. “Qrow, are you alright?”

No. No he was not alright, he was quite possibly fully infatuated with Clover, which was actually maybe alright in itself but not at all something he was equipped to deal with right this second. He needed to hit something. Gods, he needed to  _ get _ hit. And just like that, an idea came to him. A good one, too. “Yeah, peachy. Just want to look into something. I’ll see you at dinner?”

Clover didn’t look completely convinced, but nodded once. “Dinner, then.”

Qrow turned and went looking for Winter Schnee.

He hadn’t seen her in years, since the last time she had visited Vale, but he knew she’d come back from something or other recently and should be findable. He succeeded when he came across her walking near James’ quarters, and from there it was the work of barely a minute to piss her off. With that taken care of, they left to find a training room and settled into their normal pre-conversation routine of beating the shit out of one another before he asked his question.

He started by muttering something unintelligible with his face squished into the floor mats.

“Speak clearly, Qrow,” Winter said while literally sitting on his back, perfectly enunciated just to irritate him. He twisted and threw her over him towards the wall.

“I  _ said, _ why’s your dad fucking up the landfall defenses?”

“Did Clover tell you or did you finally read a debrief?”

“Answer the question.”

“Hm. So it was Clover.”

Several throws later, Qrow asked again. “So, any ideas?”

Winter rolled her eyes and stretched out her shoulder. “Money, probably. It’s always money with him. As if the Schnees didn’t own half of Atlas already.”

“Have you tried talking to him?”

Her next hold was a little more vicious than it needed to be. “I guarantee that will not improve the situation.”

“What about James?”

“The general is doing as much as he can.”

“It’s just us, you can say he sucks at delegating.”

Her lips twitched. “I did not say that.”

“Sure you didn’t.” And then they were off again.

Fighting Winter had a lot of benefits. It was good practice, for starters, since Winter had been training in martial arts from the moment she abdicated from the Schnee family. Secondly, even if it had been vague, it helped to know with more certainty what Jacques Schnee’s motives were. And finally and most importantly, Qrow was so tired by the end of it that he had a good reason to skip dinner and go collapse in bed early without bothering to undress.

Which was lucky, because the shatterdome proximity alarms started blaring at six in the morning.

“We have a leviathan approaching the shatterdome. All combat personnel report to the hanger bay,” said a monotone James from the emergency speakers.

Qrow groaned. So much for having time to think. Grimm were the top priority. He’d just have to deal with the fallout from drifting with Clover as they went. Hopefully it didn’t de-sync them. Maybe he could play it off as the same sort of flirting Clover did. He staggered out of bed and took off running when his feet hit the hallway.

One uncomfortably fast drivesuit fitting later, Qrow was back in Due Process with two technicians helping him into the hookups with practiced speed. Clover was already in, looking bright and awake and concerned and beautiful and  _ fuck. _

“You missed dinner, are you good to go?” Clover asked.

Qrow didn’t trust himself to speak. He nodded.

Clover looked unconvinced but didn’t press. “Drop us.”

“Initiating neural handshake.”

Clover was  _ everywhere. _ Clover was structure and acceptance and surety and Qrow was falling towards him with no way of stopping but he couldn’t, he couldn’t touch him without  _ wanting _ again, wanting closeness and trust and if Clover, if Clover didn’t—

_ Oh, Qrow. _

Clover caught him.  _ How could I not? _ How could Qrow have worried? How could he not have  _ seen? _

Drift compatibility was not friendship. Physical attraction was not love.

_ They don’t have to be, but they can. Qrow, come here. Come  _ see.

Clover held him tight and Qrow saw  _ everything. _

Behind the Atlas training, behind the public face, Clover loved with an intensity that made Qrow’s body back in Due Process gasp. Clover loved Atlas, in an abstract sense, in the way one loved a home. He loved the shatterdome with a fierce and protective love. He loved Penny with a hopeful love, love for the next generation of Remnant. And he loved James with a desperate, unshakeable love that wanted badly to be given, but held itself back.

His love for Qrow was new; it had no other words. But there was room enough in Clover’s big heart to give it some.

_ I know this isn’t really the way people normally do this, but I’m game if you are. _

It was too much too fast. It had been years since Qrow had been close to anyone, decades since he’d had a drift that felt  _ anything _ like this. It wasn’t love, not yet. But gods, it could be. Clover wanted it to be. Clover was  _ choosing  _ for it to be.

Qrow chose.  _ I want to, just, not all at once. _

_ I can do that. _ Clover relaxed, fell back into the headspace in his familiar way, structured and open and…he was doing that thing again. That sparkling feeling.  _ Not sorry, _ Clover said like it explained things.  _ Too excited. _

Qrow rolled his eyes and before he could get too nervous about it replied,  _ Alright lover boy, let’s go. _

* * *

The leviathan never stood a chance.

Qrow unhooked from Due Process while staring at their sync graph. A solid, steady drift throughout the battle that never dipped below ninety percent. If someone had told him back in Vale that he would break his record sync rate with one of James’ operatives, he’d have laughed them out of the bar.

How things change.

Clover shrugged out of the pilot connections and yanked his helmet off so he could look at Qrow without the glass. His normally perfectly styled hair stuck up at all angles. It should have looked horrible. Qrow wanted to touch it. His fingers twitched at his sides.

Without looking away, Clover closed the distance between them and pressed their foreheads together. “Okay?” Clover asked.

Qrow sighed into the touch. “Yeah. Okay.”

In the back of Qrow’s mind, something sparkled.

* * *

In his defense, the transition to ghost drifting was very gradual. Nothing actually changed on a day-to-day scale, after the leviathan fight. The only changes that Qrow really noticed were the touches. Small things, like a hand against his shoulder or nudging his ankle under the table. They were as undemanding as the rest of Clover’s affection, and it was easy to lean into them and just let that affection wash over him.

So he wasn’t exactly at his sharpest when he sat down with Clover to play their regular poker game. Which meant that when he looked up from his cards and locked eyes with Clover and thought,  _ cute, _ he spent a while contemplating that yes, Clover was cute, before realizing that the thought had  _ not _ originated in his own mind.

He got confirmation a minute later when they drew for the next round and felt a surge of excitement and disbelief. Qrow looked down at his own hand of completely useless cards and threw them on the table.

“There’s no way you’re not stacking the deck, Cloves.”

Clover arched an eyebrow. “It’s possible to just draw bad hands, Qrow.”

“Yeah, but I can tell you drew something good. Again.”

“How did—oh.” Clover looked at him and frowned in concentration. “What am I thinking now?”

Qrow tried to tune into where he felt the emotions from. “Uh. Jack of hearts?”

“We should report it,” Clover nodded, and reached for his phone.

“It’s not their business,” Qrow snapped, sharper than he meant to. But it wasn’t.

Clover stopped with his phone halfway out of his pocket, frowning. “It’s just to monitor the ghost drifting, make sure we’re stable.”

Qrow didn’t want it  _ monitored. _ He wanted it  _ left alone. _

There was a press against his consciousness, something Clover-shaped. It wasn’t like in the drift, where reaching out to one another was easier than keeping separate. It was more like trying to swim towards each other against a current. Qrow tried to reach back, to explain without words why he didn’t want to tell anyone. Then Clover reached out across the table for Qrow’s hand, and suddenly they were  _ there. _

_ Safe, _ Clover repeated. Images of hospitals and charts.  _ Healthy. _

_ Not theirs, _ Qrow replied fiercely. Ghost drifting wasn’t terribly common but it was well-studied. Short of trauma doubling while drifting, there were no known adverse effects, so long as the pilots didn’t mind it. And it wasn’t as if the doctors could do anything about it. Nothing stopped ghost drifting but removing the pilots from duty together, and Qrow didn’t want that.  _ Ours. _

That seemed to do it. Qrow felt the moment Clover’s warmth overrode his sense of duty.  _ Okay, _ Clover said, and slid his hand back to his side of the table.  _ Ours. _ The drift faded away as quickly as it came, but on the very edge of his thoughts, Qrow could still feel a lingering connection.

It was comforting.

* * *

Clover’s touches changed. Their legs were always intertwined under tables now, and poker tended to devolve into cuddling. But ever since they started ghost drifting, Clover was more careful with skin contact. It made a kind of sense. Strong emotions could easily bleed from one pilot to another, and it was more likely to happen the more they drifted. Qrow felt Clover’s unhurried affection every day, and that was more than fine. But this was a more demanding feeling, and even though Clover had to be able to feel how much Qrow wanted it, he held it back whenever he could. It was politeness, Qrow realized, that had Clover shying away. One could even call it sweet. Qrow called it absolutely maddening.

Eventually, Qrow gave up and just  _ asked. _ Through the drift, of course, because they tended to part ways right after dinner, and eavesdropping was practically the official sport of the shatterdome. So he looked up at Clover across the table and tried to think sexy, inviting thoughts.

What he got back was a sort of surprised but horny question mark.

Qrow rolled his eyes and held out his hand.

_ Are you sure? _ Clover asked once they connected.  _ There’s no rush— _

Qrow projected an image he’d thought a lot about the past few nights. Clover, spread out over his bed, lips parted, looking up at Qrow as he undid the buttons on that perfectly fitted vest—

Clover made a choked off noise.

—wanting to see all that skin, to touch and see how it felt to touch Clover and  _ feel _ his responses— 

_ Wait, wait. If you keep doing that I’m not gonna make it there. Room. Yours? Now? _

_ Now, _ Qrow agreed, and got up to leave. He didn’t need to turn around and watch Clover follow. He didn’t even need to check the drift.

Qrow started stripping before he even heard the door to his room shut behind Clover. Clover’s thoughts had been all tension and anticipation as they’d walked, but Qrow knew the moment Clover turned to look at him, because they all coalesced down to a desire Qrow knew well. He looked back and saw Clover, hand still on the door handle, mouth half-open and eyes wide.

Qrow stepped out of his pants and put one hand on his bare hip. “You gonna stand there all night or come touch?”

Clover blinked, and half a moment later he was across the room, Qrow’s head in his hands and bringing their lips together.

That sparkling sensation was back but all through Qrow’s body, all through  _ Clover’s _ body, and he could feel what Clover was feeling like an echo across his skin. He dragged his hands over the planes of Clover’s back and he heard Clover think  _ more _ and then there was a fucking  _ diagram _ of—

Qrow pulled away from the kiss because he couldn’t stop laughing. Clover followed him, until he was wedged between the wall and Clover, Clover abandoning his mouth to suck at his neck and shoulders while Qrow cackled.  _ Why is your jacket that complicated? _

_ Less talking more buttons Qrow Qrow Qrow  _ please—

Clover wasn’t holding back anymore and there was a desperation to his thoughts that made Qrow’s head spin. Right. Clothes. He worked his way down the line of buttons and catches and the moment the last one came undone Clover was shedding the damn thing, letting it join the pile of Qrow’s clothes on the floor. He took a half step back to pull his shirt over his head.

The scar went from Clover’s right hip up to the bottom of his ribcage, and when Qrow saw it there was always a flash of that memory, of Clover bleeding out in a cockpit, and then Clover’s lips were back on his.  _ I’m here. We’re okay. _

Qrow ran his hands down Clover’s sides.  _ Here. There? _ The bed.

_ There. _ Clover didn’t let go, only tugged at Qrow’s shoulders and pulled them towards the bed until Clover fell backwards onto it, with Qrow on top of him.

That couldn’t be comfortable.  _ Heavy— _

_ No. Fine. Stay. _ Clover pulled him even tighter.  _ Touch. Please? _

It wasn’t drifting, not quite, but it wasn’t  _ not _ drifting. Clover was under his body but also under his skin, the ghostly sensation of his own hands in the same places he touched along Clover’s body reflecting off one another until the gravity of it dragged Qrow under and dragged Clover right along with him in a shower of sparks.

Qrow fell asleep with Clover nuzzled against his chest, watching the stars in the drift fade into warm, steady light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Qrow POV: oh no he's hot and good with kids better go get punched about it  
> \- In my head, Qrow takes naps and sleeps a lot he’s tired all the time and Clover is the sort of person who wakes up at five in the morning to shovel snow for other people, I believe this deeply  
> \- When I imagine Qrow and Winter sparring I’m imagining aikido. There are some really excellent gifs and I cannot do it myself, but I have had it described to me as “ballroom dancing but every so often someone gets thrown.” Feels right for them.  
> \- I don’t know if y’all think in colors but whenever I’m writing about them drifting in the abstract, Clover is all white, right-angled prisms, and Qrow is bright red and completely amorphous. The absolute worst description I can give is “pouring cherry syrup into an ice cube tray.” I dunno. Brains are cool! If you had a different imagine I would love to hear it.  
> \- Sorry if you tuned in for robot fights, since I straight up skipped that one. It was great, they did well, no one died.  
> \- I have made Clover’s jacket. There’s _no way_ the six visible buttons are the only buttons holding that thing on him, I had to put two sneaky clips in, that’s it that’s the whole undressing joke  
> \- Also if you’ve read the hockey AUs you may have noticed I’m trash and have a thing for a horrible post-workout sweaty-hair Clover, it fucks and I will not apologize


	4. Care

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They have to talk to James. Then, some fluff.

On occasion, James would make announcements to the shatterdome at large. It was the only time Qrow and Clover really saw him anymore, but they weren’t listening terribly closely to his words. In the back of the room, they stood against the wall hand in hand.

_He’s not getting better,_ Qrow observed.

A pause. _No,_ Clover finally admitted.

_He’s not going to “come around.”_

_Yes. I see that now, thank you._

Qrow softened. _Didn’t mean—_

_I know._ Clover sighed and gripped his hand tighter. _Sorry. Just—hurts. To see him like this._

_Yeah._ Qrow looked around at the room. James looked…tired was the most charitable way to describe it. He cast his eyes around the room without really settling, but never looking back at where Qrow and Clover were. There was a hunch to his shoulders that kept returning no matter how much he rolled them back. His expression was hardened and intense, like he was forcing himself to hold it together. To James’ left, Winter Schnee stood with a stoic expression. Serious, but radiating calm and assurance as best she could.

An idea started percolating in Qrow’s mind. _Hey._ He tossed it to Clover.

Clover inspected it for a bit. _Trying already. Winter is helping coordinate with the council. The Schnees know politics._

_But not Winter._ Winter could put on that expression as much as she wanted, but Qrow knew the truth. Winter was at her happiest in a fight or planning for one. It was, he admitted grudgingly, his favorite thing about her. _Not her strong suit._

_What is?_

_Shatterdomes._

_Oh._ Clover considered, but Qrow could feel the idea taking root. Winter was a trained pilot. Winter had spent months at James’ orders travelling and trying to negotiate for things the shatterdome needed. Winter _knew_ the shatterdome as well or better than James himself. And James, for all that he hated it, knew politics. Of course, there was one problem. _James will never give up the shatterdome._

_He will if it’s what’s best for Atlas,_ Qrow insisted. He knew that much. _We just need to convince him._

_And Winter,_ Clover pointed out. But he was already thinking of how to approach James. Qrow saw the paths extend in Clover’s mind, calm, supportive words that would speak to James’ logic and his heart, and Qrow loved Clover all the more for them. This would work. _She and I haven’t spoken much,_ Clover admitted. _I wouldn’t know what to say to her._

Qrow grinned. _Leave that to me._

* * *

It took getting punched for a bit longer than Qrow would have liked, but Winter eventually conceded that his idea might have “some merit” and that she’d consider it. That was pretty good for a first attempt, he figured, so right afterwards he followed the connection of the ghost drift to find Clover and tell him the good news.

It led him to directly outside James’ office. Inside, someone was yelling. Qrow barged in without a second thought.

“—should have been there with you!” James finished and slammed his right fist into the table. The metal dented under the impact.

At the sound of the door opening, the room’s occupants turned as one to stare at Qrow. Both were in their full military uniforms, James because he always was, Clover because he’d felt it was best to bring his best to this conversation. Which was why he was currently glaring at Qrow’s workout pants and threadbare tank top.

The ghost drift had become strong enough that they could speak over short distances with a bit of effort. _Qrow, why are you half-dressed?_

_I heard yelling. It seemed serious._

_That’s why you should be dressed!_

_Well excuse me for not running back to my room for a better shirt while James had a breakdown!_

“Out loud for the rest of us,” James growled.

Qrow took a deep breath. James was on edge, and just being near him meant Qrow was going to be on edge as a result. Only Clover seemed to be unaffected, though the connection between them suggested otherwise. “I heard shouting. Decided to make it my business.”

“This doesn’t concern you.”

“It does, actually,” Clover said as gently as he could. “Qrow was the one who suggested Winter.”

James looked stricken. “Qrow? Why would you—I know the drift test didn’t go as planned, but—”

Qrow saw red. “You think this is about the _drift test?”_

_Qrow!_

“No!” Qrow snapped at Clover. “I’m not letting him get away with this _shit_ anymore. You.” He walked directly into James’ space. James took a half step back. “You spend so much time trying to hide that you don’t even _look._ I’m not mad about the fucking _drift test,_ James. Don’t act like you know what I’m thinking, the poor sucker who got that job is standing right over there.”

“I know that, Qrow,” James said, low and hollow, and Qrow opened his mouth to yell again when Clover reached out and grabbed his hand.

_James, I chose to pilot with Marrow, like I’m choosing to pilot with Qrow._ Clover was playing back the conversation before Qrow had entered, he realized. _There are always risks. It’s what we do._

_Marrow was inexperienced,_ James countered. _It was a risk we shouldn’t have had to take—_

_You had to send us. We needed another Paladin out there. It’s not your fault, that hit could have happened to anyone—_

_But I should have been there with you!_

Qrow looked back at James. He was furious, of course he was, but there was something else. _I know that,_ he’d said, and with Clover’s help, the pieces started to slide together.

James wasn’t looking at Qrow and Clover. He was looking at the two people he couldn’t drift with, that to him he had _failed_ to drift with, one of whom had nearly died under his watch, and who were now co-pilots and ghost drifting right in front of him. Without him.

Looking into James’ eyes now, Qrow felt a familiar sense of vertigo. It was the way he felt in their drift looking down at James’ fear. Fear of failure. Fear of loss. Fear of losing everything. Everyone.

James didn’t think he was mad. James thought he _left._

“Fuck,” Qrow whispered. He’d messed this up. James had _needed_ him, needed _anyone,_ and because he was _James_ he had pushed Qrow away instead, and _Qrow had let him do it._ He tried to take a step back, but Clover held him fast.

_Talk._

“I...James, I came to _Atlas_ for you. I _hate_ Atlas.”

Clover squeezed his hand a little too hard.

“I mean—fuck. I’m not gonna say I don’t, but that’s not the point. I wouldn’t have agreed to drift with anyone else.”

James arched an eyebrow. His eyes flickered over to Clover and back.

“Because I asked him to,” Clover said, slow and steady and refusing to look away. “I...we couldn’t risk you trying to pilot Due Process alone.”

“And I didn’t want to risk _you_ in a Paladin again,” James said through gritted teeth, turning on Clover. “I wanted you _safe._ But then your test results came across my desk, because you _drifted anyway._ The _only_ reason I didn’t scrap your reinstatement request was because—” He took in a sharp breath. Swallowed once. “Because if there was anyone I could trust to keep you alive, it was Qrow.”

That. That was a lot. From James, it was tantamount to a declaration. Declarations, plural. They had to respond, James had to _know._ But it was too much at once, Clover was drowning in it, and Clover was the one who knew the right words, so Qrow was just going to have to make do. “James, we’re here. And when we’re not, we’re always gonna try and make it back here. We—” _We care. We love you._ He couldn’t say it. There was no way he could say it now and make James believe him. “We’re not leaving you,” he settled on instead, trying to sound like Clover, trying to sound solid, accepting, _warm._

James’ expression changed. His anger softened into something more like confusion, _vulnerable_ in a way James never was. Something about it seemed to nudge Clover back into action.

“We’re here with you, James.” He said aloud, and then, through the drift: _Qrow, go for the hug. Now._

_He needs space—_

_He’s_ had _space, Qrow if we do not hug this man right now so help me—_

Qrow opened his arms awkwardly, but before he could really figure out the logistics of it Clover had an arm around his waist and was barreling into James’ torso with them both until James was held between them.

For a brief, awful moment, James was perfectly still. Then his whole body shook in a long, shuddering sigh, and he melted into their arms.

* * *

Qrow’s least favorite part of drifting with Clover was that it had turned him into some sort of morning person.

Clover was still up before him, of course, because Clover woke up before sunrise every day to do some truly horrifying morning routine, and not even being fully plugged into the man’s brain could make Qrow do _that._ But he’d be up an hour or so afterwards, long before his old alarm. The only change to _Clover’s_ morning seemed to be that his sense of when Qrow was awake had sharpened, to the point that Qrow was usually only conscious for five minutes or so before there would be a knock on his door, and Clover would be there, smiling and holding out a cup of coffee.

Qrow loved that man, even at six in the morning.

Today, Qrow had gained consciousness, checked the time, and then tentatively sent out a sort of _good morning coffee when_ broadcast to the drift.

The response wasn’t as immediate as it usually was. _James’ quarters._

What? Right, Clover had mentioned something yesterday...fuck, Qrow wasn’t awake enough to remember things. He’d ask later. The important thing right now was that he knew where James’ rooms were in relation to his. He groaned and put his head under his pillow. _Too far._

A pause, and then a sort of _push_ of effort, and there was a sort of blurry afterimage of James in—striped pajamas? It sharpened and yes, those were white and blue striped pajamas, buttoned up to the collar, like something out of a cartoon. Ridiculous, and absolutely adorable.

That broke through his sleepy haze a bit. _Clover what why_

_Breakfast with James, remember? Come say hi sleepyhead ;)_

Qrow blinked. That was. That was a text emoji. He didn’t even know how he knew that, but that was absolutely what it felt like. How did Clover even _do_ that?

Distantly, he felt Clover laugh.

Curiosity and a need for his regular good morning hug had him staggering into a pair of pants and one of Clover’s non-military jackets, a sweatshirt with the Atlas Academy logo on it. It was warm, Qrow reasoned while putting it on, so he could be forgiven for betraying Beacon. He slipped out into the hallway, wincing at the bright lights reflecting off all that white and blue, and made his way towards James’ rooms.

_Your other left._

Fine. _Now_ he was on his way to James’ rooms.

_Door,_ he thought as he approached, and it slid open as he walked through, not even slowing his stride. Clover was beaming at him from one side, and held out a mug of something dark brown and steaming. He was…doing that thing again.

“You’re sparkling again,” Qrow mumbled, taking his tribute and holding it in his hands to warm up.

“You’re wearing my sweatshirt. It looks good on you.” Clover’s smile didn’t waver.

Qrow narrowed his eyes. “S’warm and mine’s dirty. That’s all.”

“Pity,” said James from near a counter with an elaborate coffee machine. “Atlas colors look good on you, Qrow.”

Qrow’s eyes widened as he took in James. _All_ of James. “The pajamas were _real?”_

James looked up at Qrow, then down at the floor, embarrassed. “They’re uh, sentimental.”

Clover cleared his throat. “What Qrow is _trying_ to say is, they’re cute. I may have used them to get him out of bed.”

James huffed a small laugh. “Well, I suppose this way there are no pictures.”

“You don’t think it would be good for morale?” Clover asked.

“Not mine, certainly.”

They _were_ cute, though. And this wasn’t General Ironwood, this was just James. His hair was fluffy and unkempt and his face hadn’t quite tightened into the stress of the day. Instead of the office, they were in the sitting room of his quarters, a much cozier space than usual. There was even a modest couch. James looked at home here. Relaxed, even.

A thought made its way up to the front of Qrow’s brain. Yes, Clover had mentioned this. Finding time to just be around James, to talk to him without him having to be the General.

Speaking of. James’ pocket buzzed, and he cursed. “My apologies, we’ll have to cut this short. I need to prepare, Winter requested an hour this morning to go over…delegation.”

Clover walked over and gently put a hand on James’ left shoulder. James sighed into the touch. “I know, I know,” James said. “You’ve explained. It’s good sense. I’m going to do it. I just might not like it for a while.”

“I can live with that,” Qrow said, and bumped shoulders with James. It was more of a mid-arm thing for James, but the idea was there. “Ice Queen’s good for it. She’s nearly as much of a tightass as you.”

“Qrow.” Clover frowned.

But James was chuckling. “Yes, well. If I were to be lovingly forced to hand off work to anyone, I’d rather it be handed to Winter as well.”

Qrow’s heart skipped on the word _lovingly._ “That’s us,” he croaked. “Always a fan of doing less work.”

James leaned down to kiss Qrow’s head. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” he murmured.

“Bright and early,” Clover responded, grinning far, far too wide.

James nodded. “Good. I’ll…see you then, then,” he finished, and headed back into his bedroom to change.

Qrow was frozen in place, stunned. _That…really happened, right?_

_Yes. Do you want to see what your face looked like?_

_Gods, no._

Clover showed him anyway. Qrow burrowed further into his borrowed sweatshirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That confrontation took days to write, sigh. The following breakfast scene some unknown amount of time later, though, was real fast to write. I love some breakfast fluff.


	5. Drift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Qrow has a terrible idea in a crisis, James has a slightly less terrible idea, and Clover is lovingly dragged for being a morning person.

Breakfast with James became another constant in Qrow’s life, barring another grimm attack. So naturally, right when Qrow felt like they were getting comfortable, it was interrupted by another shatterdome proximity alarm.

James, wonderful, soft James, who liked the ritual of fancy coffee but not the taste and liked to sit sandwiched between them on the couch while his prosthetics charged, abruptly disappeared, and General Ironwood was disconnecting from power cables and tossing them back behind the couch. He walked to his desk and turned on a screen. “Pietro, what do we have?”

Qrow looked at Clover, who looked similarly disappointed. They shared a sigh, and ran for the hangar.

The creature was _huge._ It’s head rose out of the water, as big as an island, and opened its huge maw, and _smaller grimm poured out of it._ Flying things, swimming things, things with too many teeth, all black and bone white and zeroed in on the Paladins coming towards it.

Frozen Fortune and Timber Thorn stepped in front of them. “We’ll handle the whale. You’re the one with a ranged weapon, cover the little ones,” Elm shouted over comms, and they were gone.

The little grimm had been manageable, and then Due Process had attracted the attention of a sea feilong. They didn’t move fast enough this time. Qrow got the shot off, but so did it.

There was a burst of light and sound and the bottom dropped out of the drift. For a brief and terrifying moment Qrow was alone in an empty void, before something beeped at him and he was back in the cockpit.

“Left pilot disengaged. Terminating drift.”

“Cloves? Clover!” Qrow looked frantically to his left, blinking away afterimages. Where was—

Clover was on the floor at the back of the room not moving, why wasn’t he moving? No, no no no. Qrow reached out over the ghost drift and nearly screamed with relief. He could still feel Clover. Clover was alive, he hadn’t been run through, there wasn’t any blood. Disoriented, and not likely to get up any time soon, but alive.

Half the cockpit window had been blown in, dead center, and the entire right side of Clover’s hookup was gone, bare wires sparking where they had been torn out. Any further right and it might have hit them both. Any further left, Qrow realized with terror, and it might have killed him. This was the _good_ outcome. And there were still grimm out there.

“Qrow, what’s happening in there?” James shouted in his ear.

“It’s Clover, he got knocked out, the left pilot hookup is—fuck, James, half of it is just gone, we’re a sitting duck out here even if he wakes up.”

“Which half?”

“What?”

_“Which half of the hookup is damaged?”_

“The right half, why the fuck does it matter!?”

“There’s…a plan. Sit tight, we’re on our way.”

“There isn’t much _fucking_ else I can do!” Qrow shouted back at him. He could feel Clover waking up, feel the pain through his body. He must have broken something. _Don’t get up, you’re hurt, just—_

That _thing_ roared again, and more grimm spilled out of it. Towards them. But the other two Paladins had their hands full preventing the whale grimm from advancing.

 _Qrow?_ Clover said through the drift. _What, where—_

 _Easy, Cloves. It’s ok, we’re ok._ They weren’t, and there was no way he could hide that from Clover, but if he kept telling them both, maybe one of them would believe it, maybe one of them would have an idea.

Qrow had an idea. A truly horrible idea. He stood up straight and checked his bindings. Everything was good to go. “I'm going back in.”

He could _feel_ James disapproving. Or maybe that was Clover. “Qrow—”

“I’m still ghost drifting with Clover.” He needed to get them to safety. He promised. There had been tests of this before. Sleeping pilots could still contribute to a drift at fifty percent of their usual. It wasn’t pleasant, but it might be enough, and the blowback was proportional to drift contribution. Clover would live. _I’m sorry about this Cloves, this’ll hurt._

 _What?_ Clover searched through Qrow’s thoughts in a haze, trying to understand. _Those tests were done in a full drift, not a ghost drift, Qrow, Qrow no overload will kill you no no_ no—

It only _might_ kill Qrow. If they couldn’t defend Due Process, Clover would die. The grimm were coming. Qrow could do this.

James had come to the same conclusion as Clover. “Qrow, that’s not enough! Qrow, we’ve got a carrier heading for you—”

“I know.” Qrow’s voice was steady as he overrode safety after safety, preparing Due Process for solo piloting. “By the time they get here we’ll be crawling with grimm. There’ll be no way to get back out. The record for solo piloting is two hours. How long do you need to get here, ten minutes? I’ve got time.”

The second longest solo pilot was three minutes, but Qrow was trying not to think about that. Maybe he’d learned a thing or two from Summer. Yeah, he probably had ten minutes in him. With Clover, he probably had twenty.

_Qrow no!_

“Initiating solo handshake.”

Someone screamed, and it took Qrow a moment to realize it was him. There was no drift with Clover here, there was only the full attention of Due Process and its thousands of systems turned directly at Qrow. There was no _space,_ only colors and light and _sharp_ and it was pressing in on him from all sides, compacting him into nothing. 

He was wrong. He wasn’t Summer. He couldn’t do this. It was too much, it hurt too much, he’d failed, Clover would die and it would be because of _him._

In that bright, awful chaos, there was a box.

Qrow blinked. It was trembling and thin and barely holding its own, but there it was. Qrow slipped to it, poured himself into the empty space where he could take stock, make sense of the drift around him.

 _Got us._ Clover said, weak and distant.

Color and sharp coalesced into familiar systems. Removed from it, Qrow could see clearly again. _Thanks, Cloves._

Harbinger was the easiest to use, so Qrow levelled it at the oncoming hordes and fired shot after shot, until he ran out of fire charges and switched to gravity dust. There were still more grimm, but not as many now. The carrier might make it back out. “James,” Qrow coughed. His mouth was too dry. “What’s the ETA on that carrier?”

“Ten seconds. Hold still,” James ordered, and it was a measure of how tired he was that Qrow didn’t argue.

Ten seconds later on the dot, according to Due Process’ internal clock, a carrier came up directly in front of the cockpit, with three emergency technicians, and James. The technicians jumped first through the hole in the glass, and ran to the back of the room to load Clover onto a stretcher.

Qrow was looking through Due Process’ sensors, seeing the incoming grimm beyond the carrier, but he was also looking at James through his own eyes, uncomprehending. James was wearing a drivesuit that exposed his metal arm and leg, which looked ridiculous, because if anyone would have had a drivesuit without sleeves it would have been Clover, and also why was James in a drivesuit? Watching two things made him nauseous, so he turned away from James to keep shooting at the grimm.

Inside, he was vaguely aware of Clover being moved, being taken onto the carrier, and it _hurt_ to feel him moving away like this, he _needed_ Clover to keep piloting, he couldn’t—

A soft ping, and the computerized voice spoke again. “Left pilot engaged. Awaiting neural handshake confirmation.”

What? But Clover was gone, his hookup had been destroyed. Qrow turned his head.

James was standing in the left pilot hookup, the functional half hooked into his drivesuit and the bare wires of the broken half twisted around other wires coming directly out of James’ metal arm and leg. James looked back at him and nodded. “I know it’s not ideal, but these are special circumstances. Fifty percent isn’t usually regulation, but it’s enough. We can provide cover for the carrier.”

 _For Clover_ went unspoken.

“Right pilot: please confirm neural handshake,” the computer asked again.

Qrow took a deep breath. “Drop us,” he said, and hit the button.

It wasn’t a siege this time. James wasn’t even trying to keep up the pretense anymore. James was sharp shards of memories floating in the headspace, isolated points trying to hold themselves together so they wouldn’t shatter further. Qrow carefully wove between them, brushing up gently against things that looked like they could withstand touch.

The first was recent, of James pulling wires out of his arm as the carrier brought him to Due Process. The prosthetics and the Paladins functioned off the same guiding principles. In a way, James was always drifting with himself to register sensation on that side. It had to be extensible. He wouldn’t leave them out there alone again.

Qrow kept himself connected to that one.

It was more work to find space here, but Qrow could manage. James was _trying,_ and while Qrow could still feel the occasional push one way or the other, James was mostly letting him move. James _trusted_ him.

 _Trusts_ _us/you/me,_ they said, and it sounded like Clover but it also sounded like James, and it sounded like himself.

Outside, he heard the sound of the carrier taking off. Qrow’s sense of Clover faded, and he felt the loss like a physical ache.

James was there. Not like Clover was, but like James always was. A steady presence in the drift, not enveloping but so intensely _present_ that the absence of him felt like an impossibility. _We’re getting him home,_ James declared like it was an unshakeable fact, and it wasn’t, they still had to _do_ it, but that was James’ way of making it so.

Qrow looked at their readouts. Seventy percent. Good enough. They raised Harbinger.

The rest passed in a flurry of commands between him and James, firing shot after shot into the oncoming grimm. In the distance, the Ace Ops drove the giant grimm back into deeper waters, and no more of the smaller grimm trailed in its wake. By the time it was over, only the metal supports connected to his drivesuit were keeping Qrow upright, but they brought Due Process back to the shatterdome, and James was getting them updates on Clover every few minutes.

“Just got him to the medical wing, sir. He’s stable, we’ve confirmed a concussion and several broken ribs but no internal bleeding. Room seven, if you wish to see him, sir.”

James pulled the wires out of his arms and dropped to his knees on the floor. “Good. You can stop now. Get some rest. Dismissed.”

“Acknowledged, sir.”

Another team of technicians flooded the cockpit as soon as Due Process had powered down, helping pull both of them out of the hookups. Qrow tried weakly to shrug them off. “‘M fine, don’t—”

“Actually Qrow, I must insist.”

If he used the very last of his energy scowling at James it would be worth it. He didn’t need a _checkup,_ he needed to see his co-pilot. His other co-pilot, he amended. “I’m _fine,_ I don’t need—”

“In fact, as general, I am ordering _all_ pilots of Due Process to the medical wing, myself included. I believe room seven has some spare beds.”

Oh. Right. Qrow still put on his best pout as he was put on a gurney and asked a series of questions he recognized as the concussion protocol.

Qrow was barely conscious on the trip to medical, but he heard and saw out of the corner of his eye James being propped up to almost sitting, someone holding a phone to his ear as he barked orders into it.

Qrow would roll his eyes, but his head hurt too much.

Eventually, they were all settled with whatever IVs the medical team deemed necessary, and wheeled into room seven. Qrow tried to sit up to go to Clover’s bedside, but gasped at the pain it caused.

“Later, Qrow. He’s sleeping anyway. So should you,” James said from his own bed, having somehow acquired a laptop on the trip here.

Qrow frowned. “Wha’ about you?”

James looked up, surprised. “Oh, I’ll be fine. Strained, and my prosthetics will need a tune-up, but I’m fine.”

Qrow knew enough about James to know when he was lying. James was exhausted. He was barely keeping his eyes open. “James. The shatterdome will run for a few hours without you. Come on.”

“I’m fine, Qrow. Get some sleep.”

Qrow gingerly crossed his arms in front of him. “Only if you do.”

James glared at him, but there was no heat behind it.

“Clover would agree with me, if he were awake,” Qrow pointed out.

James sighed. Not an “I want to argue with you but we’re in public” sigh, or even an “I don’t agree with you but I’m too busy to keep arguing” sigh, just a pure, tired sigh, and Qrow knew he had won. James finished typing something and closed the laptop, setting it on a side table. “Alright, Qrow. A few hours.”

Qrow nodded. “You first.”

James smiled, and leaned back against the bed. Qrow waited until his breathing evened out, to make sure James wasn’t going to pop back up and keep working, and then collapsed into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

_Qrow, breakfast! Now!_

Qrow blinked sluggishly in his bunk. It was…five in the fucking morning. _Clover what the fuck, no too early worst boyfriend why_

_Good morning to you too, babe. Your best boyfriend’s back early, hurry up!_

Qrow fell out of bed in his haste to get to James’ room.

After handing off most of the day-to-day operations to Winter, James had to spend more and more time away from the shatterdome, negotiating with the Atlas council. This time, it was going to be a full week as they finalized the deal to transfer ownership of the landfall precautions to Robyn Hill. An activist and recent member of the council, Hill and James didn’t get along personally, but after some initial arguments, they at least respected each other, and worked well together. Schnee, on the other hand, was likely to take up most of the week objecting. Qrow and Clover hadn’t been expecting James back for another two days.

Qrow palmed the door open. James was sitting on the couch, still in his business suit and looking tired but happy, Clover pressed up against his left side. His suitcase was still in the middle of the room.

“Good morning, Qrow,” James said with a smile. He peeled away from Clover to stand up. “I meant to let you both sleep in and have it be a surprise, but I ran into Clover on the way up.”

It was too early for Qrow to have a clever answer to that, so he just walked up and pulled James down into a kiss instead. “Overnight flight?” Qrow asked. James _hated_ overnights.

James shrugged. “I missed you. Both of you.”

“Hmm,” Qrow said, pressing his face into James’ chest. “Back to bed?”

James’ chuckle rumbled in his chest. “I’d like that.”

“But we’re already up,” Clover said. Whined, really. _Morning people,_ Qrow thought with disdain.

 _I heard that,_ Clover shot back.

 _You were meant to._ “Worst boyfriend can enjoy the morning without us,” Qrow declared, and pulled James towards his own bedroom by the lapel.

“Worst boyfriend?” James asked, confused.

“Being a morning person isn’t a crime, Qrow.”

“Do you wanna cuddle or not, Cloves?”

Clover rolled his eyes, but smiled and stood up to follow them.

And Qrow, flanked by the two best boyfriends in the world, finally got Clover to sleep in past six.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- James and Pietro redesigned pilot hookups for Due Process after the accident in Frozen Fortune. Clover got injured there because the pilot hookups were designed to not be removed from the pilot, so Clover didn’t get pushed back by the blast and took shrapnel at point blank. Here, he was ejected, and while it was a different kind of hit, it did probably save his life. Safety measures in giant mechs! This is how physics works right, I dunno I thought about trying to add this into things but didn't, so I wanted it known that James cared _immensely_ that Clover got hurt and had a whole safety rework done in response.  
> \- Why yes, Qrow is a goddamn hypocrite.  
> \- I vaguely wish I had picked a better word than “hookup” to describe the mess of wires that pilots have to get into but here we are  
> \- I know just enough about electrical engineering to be annoying, let’s assume that James knows a lot more than I do and did some fun personal arm hacking on the way over to have exposed wires for various data feeds and power ready to go.  
> \- Also, since I don’t think I ever explicitly said, a note on sync rates: I’m considering fifty percent to be the minimum required to make a Paladin do anything at all, and seventy is the Atlas-approved minimum for co-pilots where you can more or less operate a giant robot. In the eighties, you do that but better, and in the nineties you practically _are_ a giant robot, and the reaction times are as if you were a giant robot.  
> \- Concussion protocol is a sports thing but it seemed like an important thing for pilots, checking first and foremost in conscious pilots if they’re concussed seems good.


End file.
